Why Take Pictures?

Why Take Pictures?

by William Lulow

I have always loved pictures! Images have always played a part in who I am as a person because I seem to have been drawn to make them almost as a matter of fact while growing up. I have always been fascinated by the entire process, from the days I used to spend in a makeshift darkroom right up to today’s digital processes. There has been a love of documenting the world that goes deep into my very soul. As I have gotten better at making photographs, that “seeing” has also gotten more profound. It has become a process of creating something beautiful to look at.

In the beginning, it was trying to perfect the science of photography that consumed me. In fact, I paid so much attention to the details of a good exposure and perfect lighting that I sometimes forgot all about what I was trying to say with my photographs. But that was part of my training period as it were. I have always said, that you have to learn the science before you can do the art, no matter what form it takes, sculpture, painting, photography even and especially to an art like woodworking.

I had to perfect the lighting, exposure, development and printing of the final image in order to be satisfied on kind of a visceral level that then, transformed into looking for some kind of definitive image that can express what I feel about where and when I am somewhere, doing something.

Here I was touring in France not too long ago, visiting an old friend (also a photographer) and he took me to the ruins of an old abby in Normandy called Jumieges:

The place was extremely photogenic, even in the rain. There were various compositions which just seemed to be asking to be photographed and several exposures led to what I considered a “definitive” study of the location:

Again, I am always making pictures. Sometimes for clients, but most of all for me. Even when I am on assignment I am shooting for me. The images have to please me in some way even if they are used for an advertisement, a magazine cover or a publicity shot. My headshots need to make me want to look at them:

They have to be special in some way even if I do many in one day:

This shot was one among about twenty people I was able to do in about one-half a day’s shooting. Again, I am always looking for some kind of perfection when it comes to composition, exposure, expression (in the case of portraits and headshots) and just the overall look of the image itself.

Here’s a kind of definitive portrait:

This is an image made in a night club of a performer who wanted me to stop taking pictures. The lighting, pose and expression all manage to say something about this musician so even though he thought I had made enough images, this is the one that said it all.

Headshots are very commercial-looking images of people made for a specific purpose – to appeal to people who need to look at them:

They should be images of the people at their best, made with good lighting and very little shadow.

A portrait, on the other hand, can be whatever the photographer thinks it should be, and when I do them, I am always looking for some great expression and lighting even if it is used for a commercial purpose:

So the basic reason to take pictures and make images is because I am drawn to it. I have said many times to my students that once you begin to study classical studio lighting for portraits, you will never again look at a scene or a photograph without noticing the light. It becomes a part of your everyday seeing, from sunrises to sunsets. You just can’t help noticing what light does in our world. The next logical step is to want to document it. Here is a sunrise:

And here, a sunset:

Go out and enjoy what you see. Take pictures and leave footprints.